


out of the stillness

by empathieves



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post-Game, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empathieves/pseuds/empathieves
Summary: the story of a herald, after corypheus.





	out of the stillness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefilthremains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthremains/gifts).



This is it; what she had been waiting for, hoping that they would make it here but never quite believing.

 

They go up to her quarters instead of Cullen’s, because Amalthea doesn’t think she could bear to be away from the soft noises that fill the hall - reminders that she made it, that her shoulders had borne the weight of their faith and that she had not fallen. She stumbles a little on the steps, exhaustion overtaking her. It feels like every bruise she’s gained over the course of the Inquisition has returned. Cullen catches her, wraps his arm around her and helps her the rest of the way.

 

When they make it to the bed she kisses him, softly, and he goes with it. But she’s too tired for much else, and when they part her head falls to his chest. She feels her eyes close without her permission. She sleeps, soundly, for the first time in a long while.

 

She wakes in a pool of sunlight, warming her through, and when she sits up she sees Cullen at her desk, quietly scratching away at a letter. She watches him for a minute, the blankets wrapped around her, and when he looks up he almost falls out of the chair with surprise.

 

“I thought you’d be asleep for hours yet,” he says, smiling. 

 

“Who are you writing to?”

 

“Mia. She’d have my head if I didn’t write to tell her it was over myself.”

 

Amalthea smiles, feeling something settle in her chest. It’s over. It’s finally over.

 

“Do you think we could get a dog?” Cullen asks, sounding almost hesitant. They haven’t talked about this - what happens after. But the question tells her everything he wants, just in a few words, and she can feel tears starting in the corners of her eyes.

 

“Yes, we can get a dog.”

 

-

 

It comes crashing down again, because of course it does, and when they take her arm she is barely conscious from the pain but she can still see how much it hurts Bull to do it - and that makes the pain worse.

 

When she wakes up Cullen is there. When she breaks down he’s there, when she screams at the injustice of it all and then goes silent for days he’s there. She has too many scars now to count, and she hates looking at them, and she hates other people looking at them, but he’s still there.

 

Everything after that is hazy, like remembering through fog, but Cullen is always there.

 

-

 

It gets better.

 

It takes time, and it hurts, and sometimes Amalthea feels like it’s not worth it, but she carries on. That’s what she does - she gets hurt and she gets back up, faces down dragons but gets back up, loses an arm and gets back up. She’s tired, and she wants to sleep sometimes - just lay down and stay there for a while, not having to deal with scars and phantom pains and the sensation of being off-balance because there isn’t any weight where there used to be. But she keeps going, and it gets better.

 

They get married. It’s the best day of her life, even if she’s still having a lot of bad days. They move out to a hillside by the ocean, in Fereldan. They get a dog. Amalthea swims in the ocean and finds shells in the sand, brings them home and rinses them and keeps them in a chest. Cullen writes letters, helps the templars who’ve shed their lyrium bindings. Amalthea learns how to sew. She has long, quiet days, where she needs to do nothing at all. She has days where she sits in bed and reads, novel after novel, propping them up in her lap so she only needs the one hand. She has days where she writes her own letters - to Dorian, to Bull, to Varric. Josie sends her pressed flowers from places Amalthea hasn’t ever visited, and she keeps them in a blank notebook with her shell collection.

 

Her hair gets longer again. She falls pregnant, and they have a daughter. They name her Marie, and she’s wonderful. Her days get fuller again, and she revels in being able to teach her daughter about the world - that terrible, wonderful place they live in.

 

One day, it stops hurting. The scars fade, even if they never fully go away, and when Marie brushes her fingers over them and asks how they happened, Amalthea sits down with her and says, with no pain in her voice:

 

“Let me tell you a story.”


End file.
